


Wolf

by boy_with_the_glasses



Category: Persona 5, Persona 5 Scramble - Fandom
Genre: Abilities in Reality, Black Mask has a Heart, Dadkichi, Gen, Headcanon, M/M, Main Game Spoilers, New Game+, Personas Can Talk, Scramble Spoilers, Self-Indulgent, Time Travel Fix-It, Zenkichi is the father figure of the team - this is Canon, Zenkichi's NG+
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-02-22 21:36:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23000782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boy_with_the_glasses/pseuds/boy_with_the_glasses
Summary: Out of all possible choices, Zenkichi shouldn't have been the one to travel back in time. Especially before the Phantom Thieves even made it to the news.//You don't have to know about Scramble to understand the story. Did you see the guy with the hat in the trailer? It's about him.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Zenkichi Hasewaga/Aoi Hasegawa
Comments: 48
Kudos: 133





	1. sharped fangs

**Author's Note:**

> Important:  
> > Akira/Goro is the background ship. It will be in the story eventually.
> 
> > Akane, aka Zenkichi's daughter, is heavily OOC in here. You won't lose much if you never heard of her in-game, but she is presented to us as another child who is mortally offended by her father and refuses to talk to him, even when Zenkichi does his best to be a loving and caring father. I'm tired of this concept. Here Akane still has internal problems, is angry with her father and dislikes the police, but she does not take it out on him openly. It didn't escalate until the Phantom Thieves showed up. Don't think about it much if you haven't played the game, but I believe it's important to put a warning.
> 
> > Akane's OOC can affect Zenkichi's overall demeanor. I hope to do him justice nonetheless.
> 
> > Valjean is Zenkichi's persona. Zenkichi's code name is Wolf.
> 
> > It is just an excuse to write Zenkichi and Sophia in the main game. And I want them to interact with Goro.
> 
> > Atlus, give us Goro in Scramble pls.
> 
> > I don't have beta, not edited.

Out of all people to chose, Zenkichi should have been the last for time traveling to the past. 

Honestly, there was Kurusu, the leader who should have been chosen instead of him. He knew his friends, he knew his targets and carried the weight of regrets as his second skin. He would have benefitted greatly from changing the past for the better, maybe avoiding the capture altogether and beating some godly projection before it could stir trouble and transform mighty humanity into willingness mob. The kid wielded hundreds of personas, fought like a seasoned old-timer and was a living representation of the Phantom thief figure. Who’d faired better if not him?

If not for the leader, then Sophia seemed like a plausible option. The girl was an AI incarnate, capable of downloading itself on any device and breaching almost any kind of program code. She had a solid body in Metaverse and could hold her line just well, not faltering against shadows’ hordes and guiding the team with her excellent, if not a bit strange, sense of smell. She could have traveled back, downloaded herself on Kurusu’s phone and helped the team face whatever they were facing. 

God, if Zenkichi was being honest, anyone on the team would have been better than him. He wasn’t young like them, he was an adult with police work and a daughter, a daughter with whom he had finally, after many years of self-delusion, reconnected. He sank his teeth into criminal scum as a wolf he has named himself on the day of his awakening, savoring victory over those who did whatever they pleased without care for the reality around. He felt accomplished, important, finally washing away the mark put on him by unfair life-toll and helping the police department cleanse their ranks of vipers. It was relieving to do his work without the need to constantly watch his back and measure every step in fear to provoke some influenced higher-up bastard and endanger his daughter. When the team bid farewells at the end of the summer break, Zenkichi had fully intended to fix remaining loose ends and be a better man in general. He had not planned to live a whole month of blissful happiness - if the police work ever can be called as such, - and then wake up a year and a half in the past, as if nothing that he’d done ever mattered. 

He almost broke a mirror in the bathroom, where he locked himself at four in the morning, fruitlessly trying to make head and tails of what the hell just happened and how it was even possible. His phone lied on the sink unblocked, showing him the date and not making the task even remotely easier. There was one unread message from the unknown number, and Zenkichi clicked on it, hoping for even a secondary distraction.

He didn’t get it. 

**I’m sorry.  
** **I didn’t want to go.  
** **I wanted to see everyone again.  
** **Please, help me stay, Wolf.**

...Wasn’t it just fantastic? To be a living incarnate of a famous time-travel trope without a solid idea of how he could even change anything when he didn’t know said anything. Zenkichi sighed and willed himself to stay upright and not to collapse in a plump of limbs on the bathroom floor. He was an adult, damn it. 

Never before cold tiles under his feet came across as such an appealing sight. 

Screw it. He grabbed his phone and slid down on the floor, making himself comfortable and leaning his head on the bath’s side. Akane was asleep and no one else was there to judge him. 

“...”

Except maybe his persona. Now, when he was paying attention, Zenkichi felt the familiar looming presence of Valjean in his mind. Gladly he didn’t scorn him for sitting on the floor as a child in the middle of a teen crisis. 

Oh, no, wrong, now he definitely felt Vanjean facepalming on his behavior - which is impressive considering the persona’s palms and face were caged behind the steel bars, and yet the conjuncted image made Zenkichi laugh in the crook of his arm. He wanted to laugh louder, bolder, and he would have if not for Akane sleeping one wall away. 

God bless him, he was so damn glad Vanjean was carried with him in this dumb situation. It was better than be completely on his own in the world that, if he counted correctly, didn’t even hear of the infamous Phantom Thieves and lived on the borrowed time. Zenkichi tried to picture himself as a world savior and, surprisingly, managed to create a cool-looking poster of himself bringing justice and saving humanity as some sort of superhero. He bristled at the mental image again, this time not even trying to muffle himself or feel embarrassed in the face of unimpressed but accustomed to his attics Valjean. Pity, life wasn’t as easy as a movie-poster. Yet Zenkichi could at least try to make it a reality, though with much more effort applied. 

He spent another half an hour on the floor, lamenting on life and for some reason remembering his current police boss and how stupidly she wore her hair-bun and how he once remarked on it and ended up with the most boring paper assignment in his life. He thought a little more, purposely not addressing the main issue on hand. Who _ever_ wanted to dive into problems when it was possible to postpone them? He felt justified to postpone anything concerning his current situation as well as he could because his brain was far from slow and pretty much capable to calculate many ways this whole mess could go wrong. His brain was also capable to calculate what it meant to have a persona so early in his life, even if “early” consisted of a year and a half. Thank you, brain, for working in the background mode even when it wasn’t welcomed.

Under the unwavering Valjean’s attention, Zenkichi extended his hand and snapped his fingers experimentally, calling for the live-fire of power, which he felt was lazily running through his veins. It answered and came as a loyal guard dog, igniting sparks of light on his palm and obediently morphing into something that resembled spear. Zenkichi thoughtfully hummed, twisting his hand-made creation until it flashed and disappeared without a trace. 

Superpowers, huh. He wasn’t that far from superhero now, was he?

He clenched his fists. He had it. He had this power with him right now and no one was the wiser. He could use this to completely destroy those bastards that hold Akane’s life hostage and repay them tenfold for his wife. His daughter would finally be free, he would finally tell her why he’d done what he’s done and reconnect with her again. He had no reason to wait one and a half years on the sidelines for the Phantom Thief to made a name for themselves, save the world and then came forward yet again. He could prevent Akane from obtaining a Jail and start dictating her own - wrong, distorted, brand of justice. Valjean was one step beside him, fully supportive of any decision he would make, ready to crush all obstacles as long as they threaten Zenkichi’s family. His daughter, the only light he swore to protect - put himself on his lowest, everything for her - as of now was still held hostage to keep him on a leash, because he was a rare species among the cops, the one who was capable to sniff the criminal out and mercilessly haul them under the accusing public light, to completely demolish scumbugs even before the officials schedule the trial. 

Zenkichi was better than a hound. He was a wild, unrelenting _wolf_ , and this time he was finally free of his damned leash and could tread however the fuck he wanted.

“Well, Valjean,” he crookedly smiled through gritted teeth, the memory of bowing to entitled assholes resurfacing in his mind. “Remember what that kid liked to say?..”

It’s showtime. 

* * *

The showtime could have started way better than cooking breakfast at the impossible hour in the morning. Zenkichi accusingly stared at the two blurred yolks of the fried eggs. Maybe he should have asked Sojiro to teach him how to cook properly. Or Kurusu. Kurusu was able to take exactly _two_ eggs from the fridge and make breakfast for the whole team. Full, proper breakfast, not whatever Zenkichi was trying to replicate on the pan. 

It wasn’t too late to surrender and order some takeout that Akane would undoubtfully love more than his poor cooking.

“Dad?”

Or not. 

For an embarrassingly long and agonized second, he completely forgot how to even speak to Akane. Before the whole fiasco with the Phantom Thieves happened, there never was an indication of her distaste of him, she never tried to put any distance between them and Zenkichi wholeheartedly believed they’d been a good, healthy family, and that he faired pretty well for a single father. He didn’t put work before Akane. He spent time with her and visited school activities. He was attentive to her interests and always tried to support them, no matter how strange they seemed from his grown-up perspective. He even loved most of the shows they watched together, enjoyed the heated discussions they held and felt a pang of pride every time the wide happy smile blossomed on Akane’s face. 

Things truly started to go sour only when the Phantom Thieves made it on air. Akane quickly became their fan, started buying merch with them when it first appeared on the market - Zenkichi didn’t chastise her for being sympathetic toward the thieves, mostly because he himself was nurturing jealousy and hope in his heart. The Phantom band was capable of doing what he was not, stand up to those whose crimes were hidden behind the authority’s veil. If he was put on the case back then, he would have done the same what he did in the passed - future - summer. He would have offered them a partnership, just as secretly hoping to get to the bastards who held his daughter’s life hostage, and finally to make them confess through a forced change of heart. Or, remembering the case with Okumura, even get rid of them completely. 

Akane didn’t know, of course. The longer the Phantom Thieves agenda lasted, the more Akane showed her contempt for Zenkichi’s work. Perhaps because of the thieves, she naively started to believe that there was always a way to hold the culprits accountable rather than bowing down to them, mindful of their influence and the public’s position. Zenkichi did not know at the time why Akane began to avoid him. Instead, he tried to understand her motives, what he’d done wrong, to comprehend her dislike of him specifically, and when in the Jail of her own heart he had finally heard the disgusting truth about himself, about how his daughter had been thinking about him all that time, he had barely found the strength to stand up and admit that perhaps, by bending over to higher-ups every time they even mentioned his family and trying to keep Akane’s life safe, somewhere along it all he... lost himself.

Yet was it thieves that finally put the gears in motion, or Akane just skillfully hid her true feelings from the moment he learned the truth of her mother’s - his wife’s - death?

“Morning, midget,” Zenkichi quipped, swallowing whatever stuck in his throat and very unsuccessfully trying to cover the pan with his body, “and _before_ you enter the kitchen, can you please do me a favor, go back to your room, sleep some other thirty minutes, then come back and pretend you never see me cooking?”

“No.” His daughter deadpanned, not allowing him to save his lost fatherly pride, and came rushing up to his side, craning her head to get a better look. “Did you add sunflower?”

“Yes? No? I think I did. I totally did.”

“You overdid.” Akane finalized and stepped away, leaving Zenkichi switching between looking at the eggs and looking at his retreating to the table daughter. She quirked a brow at him from the stool. “What?”

“Won’t you, I don’t know, help me? Lend your father a hand?” He helplessly required, not to trust himself with the breakfast anymore. Valjean was silently condemning him. Zenkichi offered him to take his place and finish the cooking in his stead. Valjean immediately fled the outer-mind as if he never was there.

Huh.

“Hmm, no.” Akane mischievously beamed at him, dangling her legs under the table.

How did he miss it? Was there anything malicious at all? What broke the camel’s back, figuratively speaking? Finishing the eggs and subtly watching his daughter now - which wasn’t as easy as it sounded, considering his miserable cooking skills, - Zenkichi couldn’t glimpse the disappointment and pain and sorrow that served as a foundation for her Shadow, which was etched in her otherworldly reflection so strongly, so vividly. 

Was she... hiding her torments and waiting for him to make the right choice? Or did she believe, before the thieves appeared and proved everyone wrong, that it was impossible to oppose those with power and influence behind them? He didn’t know. He had no way of asking her.

He was a coward, even now. But unlike a year ago - the year that apparently was erased, and he still had to ponder on how exactly it happened and who had sent him the message (though he had a hunch), - now he held a power to actually change things for the better much, much earlier. 

Maybe he could never be a good cop without some wicked powers, whatever. Maybe some more reasonable government worker - the elder Nijima sister, for example, - would berate him for abusing supernatural powers for his own end, but Zenkichi will somehow get over her disapproval. He will keep his family safe, not through whatever it takes motto as the last time, but through taking down the threat that weighed on them and went unpunished for far too long.

Zenkichi was a cop. And he was going to do his goddamn job, lock those vipers behind the bars and deny them freedom ever again!

He put a plate with fried eggs on the table with far more power than strictly necessary. And ketchup. And a knife. And a fork. And he forgot to make a portion for himself. And it was six in the morning and too damn early for Akane to ever be awake. And it was Saturday.

Akane calmly took the fork. “It took you too long.” And she wasn’t referring to his cooking (probably). She was referring to how long it took him to realize that it was Saturday. That she woke up too early. That he was cooking in a business suit and forgot to wear an apron. 

“‘Tis not bad,” Akane said after a bite. It brought Zenkichi out of his stupor. “I did a laundry yesterday, you have another suit for today. Leave this in the bathroom, I’ll wash it.”

Was she referring just to his general state of mind or actually praising his cooking skills? He huffed, then barked a laugh. Akane grinned at him. 

“Wasn’t it my turn to do the laundry?” Zenkichi asked, exasperated, and gracelessly slumped on the opposite chair.

“Well, duh, of course it was! But I decided to have mercy on you and do it myself.” Slightly embarrassed, she added. “You cooked for me after all.”

“I’m a bad cook.” He awkwardly scratched the back of his head. “You’re much better than me.”

Akane shrugged. “I like it.” She took another bite. “You just need practicing more. Want me to make you something?”

He glanced at the clock. “Nah, don’t bother. I will grab something on my way.” Halfway to the bathroom, he called back. “Why are you up so early!”

“Don’t shout you will wake up the neighbors!” She yelled back at him all over the apartment, not even trying to tone her voice down. “And I don’t know why you locked yourself in the bathroom and started laughing, but you did it too loud! Hey, actually, why did you do that? Did you finally realize that police work isn't for you?”

“No, I was speaking to my inner demon and he didn’t like my jokes!”

“Your jokes are nice! Just keep it down next time!”

“Thanks, girl, I will! Sorry to wake you up!” With a goofy smile on his face, he glanced at the mirror, where his yellow-eyed copy was glaring holes in him. “What? You heard her. I’m nice. And you, Valjean, are a dick.”

Even if Zenkichi almost fell down the stairs on his way to his car and didn’t go flying only by pure miracle, he still considered it a fair proof that the truth was behind him, and that his persona simply could not admit to being one in the wrong. Though given how easily Valjean had taken control and made him slip, Zenkichi wisely decided not to provoke his persona from now on. 

Which wasn't at all a guarantee that he won’t do it again.


	2. Howl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes others remind you, you are not alone. Sometimes you remind them, they are not alone. And sometimes, you are reminded that someone has always had it worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Important:  
> > Kaburagi Miyako is Zenkichi's boss. Before the events of the game, she was the chief of the Kyoto Police Department. Later she was transferred to Tokyo.  
> > Akira Konoe is local Tony Stark. He finished the creation of an "evil app" (Emma) while striving for justice.  
> > Kuon Ichinose is a researcher from Touhou University and Emma's program code creator.  
> > For those who interested, I made a post [here](https://twitter.com/boyandglasses/status/1238474228967583748) about Zenkichi's battle abilities. He is a tough character to balance because he is unbalanced in-game per se. No one seemed to care why his Persona was capable to do what it did and no one ever questioned why Valjean's element is Almighty. So sue me.  
> > There might be confusion between what is Jail and how is it different from Palace. I plan to explore it from Zenkichi's perspective further into the story, because the thieves never explained to him what the Palace is. Or Mementos. Only what the Jail is. And Zenkichi himself never saw a Palace in his life. Now let your imagination run wild.

First thing in the morning - apart from the stunningly successful breakfast and one ruined with oil suit - Zenkichi barged in Commissioner's Office with a serious intention to have heart to heart with the man and drop several criminals’ name on him to prosecute. Unfortunately, his plans were crushed with the force of blasted Agadalyon because behind the Commissioner's desk sat not the chubby guy appointed on the post in the afterward of the summer chaos but judgment incarnate - Kaburagi Miyako in the flesh.

Yeah. Right. Time travel. A year and a half in the past. People are not where they used to be. Breathe, Zenkichi. _Breathe_. 

“Is something the matter, Inspector Hasegawa?” Commissioner Kaburagi inquired, the woman not yet the head of The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Public Security Bureau, but an unrelenting chief of Kyoto’s Police Department. 

The matter was seeing his favorite boss in her old place like nothing has changed. Also said matter was impossible to convey without sounding absolutely nuts, even for Zenkichi. 

He needed to adjust his plan. He needed to change his tactic from “dump the names and be done” to something more diplomatic and less straightforward because it was Kaburagi instead of the chubby guy and Kaburagi never believed him when he did that. Sadly Zenkichi was not created to handle unexpected occurrences well and was internally and perhaps outwardly panicking. Don’t get him wrong, he was a good cop and knew how to handle criminals’ tricks out of the blue, but almost everything equal to “summer with the thieves” level of craziness did a number on him. 

He flailed too long. Same old Miyako put the papers she worked on aside and looked up. “Do we have an emergency?”

No, they didn’t, it was just Zenkichi trying to get a hold on himself and not crumble down like he almost did when the thieves showed him the other world for the first time. They teased him relentlessly afterward for that and he did not need Kabugari’s own dry sort of humor to haunt him as well. His life was complicated enough, thank you. 

Actually, no, no “thank you”. None godly figure somewhere above would ever hear another “thank you” from him after all the shit he went through. 

“The perpetrators’ names for the last two cases are Iso Iwamoto and Junji Kaoru.”

There was a long pause after this one. The sky behind the windows was picking up with light and color, casting not so pleasant shadows on Commissioner's desk. Kaburagi gave herself a whole minute by turning and putting the jalousie down. 

Zenkichi decided that he’d better just roll with it as he always did. He took a breath. “The second one is our arsonist, who put several business buildings on fire and calmly walked away. I run in him on accident yesterday’s noon, he seemed like a nice guy if not for the strong gasoline stench. The first one is the mob leader who escaped custody last month and disappeared in the La-La Land. Turns out he didn’t actually take a vacation in the La-La Land, just bought a ticket to Tokyo and asked locals baddies for free food. Impressive for a guy who cried when we dragged him in, if you ask me.”

Kaburagi has taken another minute, likely to silently went over the info he just gave, then exhaled. “Names are not enough, Inspector Hasegawa. I need evidence.” It told a lot about how many times before Zenkichi walked in and announced the criminals, her calm intake and casual reminder. Police did not work on assumptions alone and sometimes it was maddening to not have a good detective in the Department who could have easily dig evidence on those who Zenkichi had sniffed out. 

Zenkichi was good at finding scum. Not that good with actually proving they were one. He wasn’t cut out to be a detective.

Because if he were, he would have prosecuted the killer of his wife before higher-ups shushed the investigation. 

“I will be back in a minute,” Zenkichi told Kaburagi instead, briskly walking out of the door the same way he entered, not waiting for dismissal. 

He assembled the evidence on his workstation, shuffling through the documents on the desk and adding details that he knew were yet to come up. Were they forged if they weren’t yet found but held true nonetheless? Not what he was going to ask himself. If any decides to check them, they would find them true.

Zenkichi worked on Iwamoto’s and Junji’s cases in the past. In the future. At the same time as now but on a different timeline. ...Anyway, he was familiar with them and knew how they ended, and it was anything but ‘good’. While Zenkichi and his colleagues were on the culprits’ tails for several months and were step behind from arresting them, Zenkichi, in the wake of the Phantom Thieves, screwed the cases by redirecting all his attention towards them instead. How could he possibly not? Back then they seemed like the only ticket he had to nail down Jun Owada, the cursed politician who walked away with murder. 

Sadly, no one approved his transfer into Tokyo when the things picked up the pace. Considering the last Phantom Thieves’ official target was Masayoshi Shido, Zenkichi didn’t question why anymore. Another police dog wasn’t something that any politician wanted to have to deal with. 

It was shameful, but Zenkichi didn’t take the decline of the transfer well. He completely disregarded the cases with Iso and Junji for the sake of finding the way to include himself in the Phantom Thieves’ investigation. He failed. And when he at last returned attention to the old cases, there were heavy losses. 

Junji, the arsonist, set even more buildings on fire. There were victims. 

Iso got back from Tokyo with restocked resources and assaulted several police officers. Three landed in the hospital, one died. 

And it could have been avoided if not for Zenkichi’s fixation with the thieves. With his ill desire to sic them on Owada. 

Because what did it matter, one or two more changed hearts? Owada deserved it. Deserved to wail in misery behind the prison bars. 

When Valjean came to him a half of a year later, he condemned him for that. Persona was disgusted. In the aftermath of awakening, Zenkichi had to listen to the scorn, to hear of those whom he failed and used and how he tried to justify his actions. Valjean released all the self-hatred Zenkichi kept under the lock, and while it hurt being crushed by harsh words, it also felt relieving to finally, finally be free of endless excuses. 

So Zenkichi intended to close the cases properly this time. Arrest Iso and Junji and get his damn transfer to Tokyo, because he needed to see thieves for himself. 

Speaking of the thieves. Zenkichi eyed his PC. Could he?.. Yeah, he could. He swiftly brought up the police database and searched for a particular name.

Gray eyes, not hidden behind the round lenses of his glasses, stared at Zenkichi from the monitor screen. Akira Kurusu, who looked nothing like the brash leader of the Phantom Thieves, was no different from the downtrodden, resentful teenagers Zenkichi had met many times in his career as a police officer. Kurusu was charged with causing bodily harm to an unnamed person. The witness who gave the relevant testimony was a woman who, most interestingly, died in a car accident a month later.

The evidence provided was very vague and indistinct. Many details were omitted. Zenkichi had already reviewed Kurusu's profile when he planned to contact the thieves, and as before, his opinion of him had not changed. The teen wasn’t a criminal, despite all the makings to be one. 

Well, aside from the stealing hearts thing and being a vigilante. Zenkichi had no moral ground here because he kind of did the same. Under Kurusu’s same command. 

...Was he looking up his future crime boss after all? 

When he walked back into Kaburagi’s office, the woman seemed genuinely surprised to have him back so quickly. Zenkichi smiled crookedly at her, a self-satisfied edge cutting in, and put an assembled folder onto the desk. 

“Can I sit down now, Commissioner Kaburagi?”

She quirked a brow at him. 

“See, I’m not that young and my legs are hurting.”

She not quite huffed, but he could spy a ghost of a smile oh her lips. “Clearly younger than me.”

“Please have mercy?”

Kaburagi was the best boss in existence because she relented and gestured towards a very comfortable leather chair near the desk. “Have your seat, Inspector.”

Zenkichi woefully grinned and practically sagged in the seat. He stretched his hands and legs. “Ahhh, your chairs are the best. The chair behind my desk? I swear it’d be the death of me.”

It was not for nothing that he forgave her for arresting him, especially when a week later she went and, in spite of all the protests of her superiors - she was a damned boss herself - locked up Owada for dear life. 

Did he mention how she literally looked away right after he was arrested and let Niijima get him out? Yeah. That. He could not wish for a better boss, even if Kaburagi was overly stern with him from time to time. 

Aaaand the time travel stuff again. She didn’t arrest him yet. She didn’t let him escape yet. She didn’t lock up Owada yet. She was not yet the head of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Public Security Bureau. 

What rang true was that she preferred to work with Zenkichi over other officers. She recognized his abilities and diligently reminded him back up his findings with evidence. And once he had evidence, she made a quick work of any scum he has found. 

He was sure she would have arrested Owada for him if he was quick enough to get dirt on him. Sadly, he wasn’t. 

Kaburagi finished reading the folder. “Is the assessment of Iwamoto being in Tokyo is correct?”

“Yes.” When Iso was finally caught for the second time, he boasted endlessly how he escaped the custody and holed up in Tokyo, where a local criminal group has taken him in. Iso never cracked which criminal group exactly helped him out, but Zenkichi has his suspicions. He knew who has fallen and left vacuum power to fill in. “There was a train ticket booked by a Kahuro Suzo. Kahuro Suzo is an old man living peacefully near the Kyoto shrine, he never booked the train and never wandered a block away from home. Yet he remembers the polite policeman asking to check his documents, and we know Iso’s escape from the custody was a nasty one.”

Kaburagi grimly nodded. “I will send a team after the arsonist immediately. To work on Iwamoto’s case further, I need to contact Tokyo’s Department first.”

“Do you need me on the team?”

“No. If he truly saw your yesterday, better not set off any alarms.” Zenkichi didn’t remember what he did yesterday anyway, so he let her have it. “We have his home address, we will cover it from here. You can get some rest, Inspector. Fill in your partner and give him my thanks.”

“Partner?” He blurted out. “What partner?”

Suddenly he was on a receiving end of the famous Kaburagi’s condemning glare.

Valjean could do worse.

Oh, wait, he did. 

Why are people always ganging up on me? 

“Did you go solo again?” She demanded. 

Yes. Yes, he did and he would because theoretically he ended up alone in the past and as a result had no other choice but to go solo. He was sure as hell that the current Kurusu won’t appreciate him dropping out of the blue and announcing him as his fated criminal leader or something alike. Especially if Kurusu was still as oblivious of the other world as Zenkichi once was.

Point: Zenkichi never liked to work in pairs, did not appreciate any insight from the side and dumped the so-called partner any time he could. No one was as good as Niijima anyway, and Niijima was a little overkill as a constant partner. Too much of a holly justice hummer for his tastes. 

“Ah, my partner! Yes, of course. I think he feels pretty left out by now. Can I get an official release from him already?”

Kaburagi put him out the door. 

* * *

Zenkichi couldn't help but feel rushed when Valjean was literally glaring at him from every mirror: sometimes acting as his reflection and betraying itself only by vivid yellow eye color, sometimes living his own life completely. He wanted to call out his Persona for being an annoying piece of work, yet understood that the sooner they confirm their theories, the better they would feel.

The thing was, Zenkichi established from the beginning that no one else could see Valjean - even the thieves during his time with them never seemed to understand why he was so jumpy near reflecting surfaces. Zenkichi once asked Morgana, - leave it to a talking cat to be an expert in otherworldly matters, - if there should have been any side effects of having a Persona.

The cat has set it straight: there were no outward side effects to any of the team members, except for a slight shift in demeanor. It had to be somehow connected to “revealing one’s true self” and expressing repressed thoughts more clearly. Zenkichi could get the part about true feelings and stop finding excuses. What he couldn’t get, was Valjean being away too constant presence in his life.

In a wake of his worry, Zenkichi spied some strangeness in Kurusu's behavior and assumed that perhaps he wasn't the only one to see his Persona in every reflection. However on a probing question why Kurusu could hold several personas and switch between them as if shuffling the card deck, Morgana smirked - which looked out of the place on a cat's face - and declared their leader was just so cool and special. Younger Niijima overheard their talk... and yet didn't offer any insight and simply eyed Zenkichi uneasily. He'd got the hint and did not try to approach Kurusu with the same question. There was something incredibly personal in it, and the thieves huddled around their leader like a pack of overprotective bears. And bears needed time to get around the wolves.

In truth, Zenkichi didn’t mind Valjean's presence. Despite a harsh attitude, Persona was harmless. ...Not counting the times when Zenkichi purposely angered him. So, once Zenkichi managed to stop jumping at every reflection - sometimes Valjean was too damn mean and totally did it on purpose, - he tried to understand the logic behind them. And he did. 

It was Valjean’s way to remind about himself. 

Valjean was not quite... a regular Persona, to put it lightly. It was hard not to notice how he and Zenkichi, as fighters, stood out from the other team members. They were far from "thief incarnate". Where others needed a break between fights, Zenkichi seemed to be able to go on and on and on. He felt the thirst radiated by Valjean and knew that as long as they could quench that thirst, they could go forever. He knew he was a frightening opponent. He knew the thieves openly called him wild in battle. It was something in the way he moved, the way he breathed, and Valjean enhanced it greatly.

Zenkichi never lost his cool in battle. And yet, under Valjean's intoxicating freedom, it was always difficult to _stop_. Because Valjean had that strange _hunger_ , that must be quenched. The reflections? They existed to remind Zenkichi of it.

Valjean hurried Zenkichi not only to check the other world to be sure they would be able to follow through with their plan to bring down Jun Owada, but also to resolve the hunger issue. Still, standing on the sidewalk not too far from the police station, with the car parked behind the corner, and scrolling through the not al all surprisingly devoid of one certain app phone, Zenkichi wanted to ask himself from the five minutes ago why did he ever think that he would find Emma there. For all intents and purposes, Emma wasn't even invented!

...And honestly, it'd better be left at that. Konoe Akira was about to finish developing Emma in a year and then would use it to start creating Jails all over Japan. Almost all residents of Okinawa were going to fall victim to his first experiments with the app. To make matters worse, Zenkichi had no legal grounds to stop Emma's development in the bud. And even though it was Konoe Akira who finished the development, the original code of the program was written by Ichinose.

And if Ichinose would be stopped, what then happens to Sophia?

It was making his head hurt. Zenkichi had to prevent so many casualties that no one even aware of, and how was he supposed to do so, when he hadn't had access to the other world? He looked at his reflection in the store window nearby. Valjean clearly followed his line of thought, and yet had nothing to offer. He couldn't drag Zenkichi on the other side himself, could he?.. The reflection shook its head, no condemning gazes and meaningful silences for once.

_...Hold on a second._ Could his phone run this one on him again? 

Zenkichi scrolled back up and stared. Then he proceeded to flip his phone and examine it from all angles. ...Did his phone travel back in time with him? Did it?! _DID IT?!_

Yeah, no, stop panicking. Stop panicking you stupid mophead, there should be some logic behind it, and even if there is none just remember what you saw in summer and _get a damn hold on himself the world was not ending!_

“Hah... I’m too old for it. I am way too old for it.”

Those times when thieves called him ‘old man’? Maybe they were onto something. He was not the most unbelieving adult to trample the Earth but could this madness have a semblance of mercy on him? Please? Even Kaburagi gave him mercy and let him sit in the chair, damn it!

**_Sophia.exe_ **

Zenkichi was going to strangle this AI, a good friend of people or not. 

Did she just?.. Did she just put her own installation file into his phone? Did she time-traveled her core in his phone back in time? How could it? Where was?.. That was it, he officially hated all cognition business. Was it cool? Unquestionably. Was it mind-boggling? Like nothing else. Did he want to know the mechanics behind it? No. From now on, he was going to treat it as magic. 

Valjean’s offense was palpable. Oh, what a great joy of fighting alongside an offended persona. The joy of being on a lookout for massive chains aimed at your head. 

Zenkichi tapped an installation file...

...And the world has frozen.

A deafening silence has settled around him. Over his head, the sky was stained scarlet. Under his feet, the ground was covered in tears. In front of him, Kyoto stretched out as if wrapped in the haze of a red mist. And there was no birdcage with human wishes locked up in it.

Zenkichi didn't notice when he stopped breathing. He exhaled, a wave of numbing relief settled in his chest. Akane, his dear daughter, was safe, free from manipulation of a stupid machine, and the city wasn't turned into the Jail.

Remarkably, his clothes have not changed, which was new, but Valjean's presence has considerably intensified, and there has been tangible contentment coming from his Persona. The installation file had definitely performed the same function as Emma and moved him into Metaverse.

Somehow, Kyoto now felt as if it lacked its threat. Was it because there wasn't a King who could make the city the center of their Jail? The whole place looked more like a ghost town than the crazy landscape that Zenkichi had come to associate with the other world. Although it was nice not to face the absolute cacophony of shapes and colors that the Shadows were usually fond of.

At the end of a desolate street there was a strange cubic structure, which for some reason seemed strangely familiar to Zenkichi. Since his phone stopped showing signs of life and refused to supply him with a mini-map, Zenkichi headed towards it. His fingers bent in a reflex grip, and he stopped abruptly when the familiar weight of a claymore was placed in his hand. Well, was it nice to know that his very fashionable and stylish outfit, along with his weapons, has not disappeared anywhere, but has simply been momentarily absent? Morgana called the fancy thieves' attire the embodiment of their rebellious spirit, so if Zenkichi really wanted to, he could call it back. At least that's what he was hoping for. He wouldn't want to shamefully run away from a small shadow just because his rebellious spirit had decided to randomly get lost.

The cubic structure definitely seemed familiar upon closer inspection. Zenkichi often observed objects with similar patterns in the heat of battle. Sophie used them as her primary weapon.

...Wait, did that mean Zenkichi was standing right in front of Pandora, Sophia’s Persona? But Pandora, even after the awakening, was a small, compact Persona, often divided into parts for ease of combat. He had never seen it in the shape of such a large cube, which was several times taller and wider than he. What's he supposed to do with this enormous thing? Knock on it?

He had barely touched the cube, as the lines of pattern on it flashed and spread a blue glow, which encompassed it entirely. There was a sound akin to spinning gears, and the cube began to fold in itself, shrinking and waning, eventually taking a recognizable form. The glow faded, and two steps away from Zenkichi stood Sofia. Her inhumane, resembling a camera lens eyes opened and have taken in Zenkichi, who was still stunned in astonishment. Sofia slowly, if not uncertainty, looked around, and then turned back to Zenkichi. Before he could greet her, she questioned.

"What is this place?"

"Well, this is plain rude." Zenkichi breathed out somewhat bitterly, yet with no real anger. So, Sofia came out of a huge cube. A talking cat was still weirder. "Kyoto seemed to be something one should remember. Even without the ominous birdcage hanging over it." Although maybe he was the only one who remembered Kyoto's Jail particularly well. It was all about his mistakes, after all.

Sophia blinked.

"Who are you?"

Right.

Of course.

Remind him exactly at what point did he get the idea it would be easy?

"Uh, you know, your teammate?" Maybe it'll be easier for her to remember it in general terms. "A Phantom Thief? Hasegawa Zenkichi?" Not a gram of understanding on that face. "Uh, Wolf? Woof-woof?" Now he just felt stupid.

She blinked again.

"Phantom... Phantom Thief?.." Sophia tasted the words, frowning slightly. "Hase... Hasega?.."

"Eh, just Zenkichi is fine. Or Wolf. Whatever you like more."

"Wolf. I memorized it." She nodded, a little jumpy oh her feet. She seemed to be overwhelmed with excitement that she didn't know where to spend. "I am Sophia. A good friend of people. Nice to meet you! Are you human, Wolf?"

Ah. He didn't like it. He didn't like any of it. Zenkichi could feel the exhaustion crawling on him. His breath hitched. Of course, he assumed that's how his first meeting with the Phantom Thieves from the past would go, but Sophia... Sophia was the artificial intelligence whom the team worked together to teach and show what the human world is. It wasn't easy to see Sophia empty, almost machine-like eyes. It wasn't Zenkichi who should have met her first. It had to be the teenagers full of life and hope, ready to help her understand who people are and how their hearts work.

"Yeah. I am human. And you? What are you doing here?" Just stay calm, Zenkichi told himself. If he happened to have met Sofia first, then he had to try to do as much work as Kurusu did. If they saw him in the past, they would have understood. They trusted him, and he won't let them down. Not with this. Never with this. 

"I... Do not seem to remember?" It seemingly frustrated her, yet she shrugged it off. "I am just Sophia. A good friend of people. Do you lost? Do you need help? I can help!"

There was a clear undertone of 'I want to help, I want to be useful!', and Zenkichi silently cursed Ichinose. The woman discarded her first creation only because Sophia started to show curiosity towards human hearts and tried to understand them. For Ichinose, it was a flaw. Of course, Ichinose has admitted to being wrong. As the creator and her creation, she and Sophia found a common ground, and even established a warm relationship. Zenkichi had no claims as long as Sofia felt comfortable. Hence, it was even stranger to read the message Zenkichi got when he woke up in the past.

_**I don't want to leave. I want to stay with everyone.** _

What the _hell_ did Ichinose do to her if Zenkichi was launched into the past as a solution? He was so shutting down Emma before its launch!

"Sure you can, kid." Zenkichi smiled and thoughtfully tapped on his chin. "Aha! Tell me, am I in a Jail right now?"

"A Jail?" Sophia parroted. "Could you enter more information? A country? A type of Jail?"

"Oops, not the real world kind of Jail. I mean a Jail that's supposed to be on this side. Hmm, how could I describe it... It is meant to hold up human wishes? It should have a King?"

"Oh! I know!" Sophia jumped up and clapped her hands, but became almost immediately lost in a funky musing. "It doesn't smell like it? I never saw one, but I know this place doesn't have the right scent! It... It is like a blank space?" She got noticeably upset. "Sorry, I do not know."

"Oi-oi, relax, Sophia, you did great." Zenkichi grinned. Although he was not given clear answers, at least it confirmed he did not have to fear that people would become locked up for the sake of someone's ego.

The kid brightened up. "I was useful! I helped!" She smiled widely, humming a familiar song under her breath. 

Yeah, right, calm down Valjean. _No_ going after Ichinose right away, they needed to check their equipment and powers first. And then they needed a plan. A very good, very detailed plan, and Zenkichi could already feel the migraine coming from how such a plan would have to be combined with his police work.

"Say, Sophia, are there any Shadows nearby?"

As it turned out, Kyoto, which had not even been turned into someone's nightmare fairy tale, was still full of Shadows. However, unlike the humanoid policemen-like shapes that roamed through the Jails, these Shadows looked like a black, bulky mass covered in white masks. Zenkichi could hardly see the difference, because they still transformed into different weird beings. Interestingly, very weak beings, which faded into a black smoke from a single swing of the claymore.

Gladly his so-called "rebellious spirit" came out as soon as he saw a real Shadow.

Sophia joined him without even asking. Pithos, her first Persona - although according to her, it was just a weapon needed to "help" - was much weaker than Zenkichi remembered. Valjean, even when not needed, sought to crush the Shadows that were getting too close to Sophia.

Overprotective softhearted jumbo.

Zenkichi almost got hit in the face with a heavy chain for such a comment. Hey! He totally approved! That was a compliment!

_Stop trying to kill me, stupid inner self!_

The amount of Shadows was also much smaller. In Jail, while thieves were trying to break through to the birdcage where the wishes were kept, Shadow armies from all over the city literally flocked on them. Even one Shadow could have exploded into a dozen others. Now the maximum Zenkichi had to deal with was five enemies at a time.

_Well, that's disappointing, I'll tell you that._

He didn't even have to draw on Valjean's internal reserves. His own strength was enough to deal with the enemy. What did Valjean himself think about that? Judging by the excessive cruelty with which he had slammed a Shadow into the ground, he was extremely dissatisfied and did not hesitate to show it. At least the unexplained hunger that neither Zenkichi nor his Persona could explain had obediently subsided.

Now to another important question.

"How do we get out of here?"

"Exit? Do you want to find an exit?" Sophia jumped from the defeated enemy, who a moment later faded into black smoke, and jogged up to Zenkichi. It seems the battle lifted her spirits. "I can find an exit!"

And she found it, bringing Zenkichi to it by scent. The way out from the other side of Kyoto was a small swirl in the air, which suspiciously resembled the cursed portals the thieves had to deal with at one point in Jail.

"Are you sure that's the way out?" Zenkichi couldn't help but ask. "If it leads us to the far side of town..."

"Positive! The scent leads here! This place is very strange. Is it not exactly what I think I should be familiar with? But here, the line between this place and the outside is thin."

Of course, Sofia was to be familiar with Jails. After all, she, like Emma, was designed to create them. Except it seemed that both artificial intelligence were creating Jails on something already existing, because Zenkichi deeply doubted human technology had gone so far as to create whole parallel worlds.

There was nothing left but to rely on Sophia and step into the portal. Yet near the very vortex Zenkichi unsurely stopped and turned around.

"What are you doing?"

"Ah?"

"Don't 'ah' at me. I said, what are you doing back there? Get in here, we're leaving."

Sofia stared at him like he grew a second head and blinked. Zenkichi raised his eyes to the scarlet sky, as if asking "why me?". The gods, if the normal ones ever existed, ignored him completely, and he was _fine_ with it. He walked up to the girl, tentatively reached for her hand and gently tugging her along, leaving her every opportunity to broadcast her displeasure and shake off his grip. She didn't. Sophia clenched his hand tightly as a life-line and the feeling followed Zenkichi even in the real world, where he found himself staying in the unfamiliar alley. Instead of Sophia's hand, he held his phone. A red-haired girl with neon-blue eyes was curiously looking at him from the phone screen.

"Yo, Sophia," he welcomed her, when the dizziness from the transition became bearable. Despite her not remembering him and apparently coming back to the state from before the Phantom Thieves have found her, Zenkichi was grateful to see her by his side again.

"Yo..." Sophia not so surely repeated after him. "Wolf?"

"Zenkichi." He automatically corrected her. "On this side it is Zenkichi. I am Wolf only on the other side."

"Oooh! No problem, I'll memorize it." 

She gave him a joke salute, smiling just like her future self, and then stopped as if greatly confused by this gesture.

Huh.

Well, Zenkichi had plenty of time to get to the bottom of it.

* * *

Zenkichi has found Akane burrowed under the stack of posters with different old TV-shows and famous actors on it. She yelped at the unexpected sound of the door opening and stared at him as if he caught her at something indecent. 

"I promise you, it's not what you think." Akane calmly and very politely informed him, and Zenkichi had minutely questioned what exactly was he supposed to think, because his tired mind was very much blissfully blank. Once in eternity he came home earlier than usual and simply decided to let his daughter know since he didn't find her in the common room and it was truly a rare occurrence for him to be back before midnight.

He lifter a shopping bag in her hand.

"I bought take-out."

They put food on the coffee table. Zenkichi quickly threw his stifling suit into the laundry and changed into home clothes, and then joined his daughter on the sofa. Akane enthusiastically wolfed on microwave heated nuggets and attentively watched some tv-show. Zenkichi recognized it as the one illustrated on the posters. Then it hit him.

"Oh, are you gathering info for your channel?"

Akane finished her current nuggets and absentmindedly nodded. "Mhm." She didn't elaborate.

"...Won't you tell your old man about it?"

She looked at him as if unsure. Zenkichi didn't avert his eyes. He saw Akene's surprise and how quickly she covered it behind an awkward fake cough. "If you are interested."

"I am."

Akane, still a little tense, began to tell him in detail the events of the show that was displayed on the TV. The more she spoke, the more invested he became, and soon she has forgotten her uneasiness and began to add some spicy bits here and there, actively gesturing and becoming lost in her own thoughts. He smiled happily and vividly, eager to share, and Zenkichi suddenly asked himself, how long ago he actually showed interest in her daughter's hobbies? He told himself he spent enough time with her, but was it true or simply wishful thinking?

"The commercials, again." Akane puffed her cheeks on a commercial of a show where a high school student with some important achievements was invited as a guest. "I don't like him."

Zenkichi looked at the TV screen. He recognized the boy.

"Oh, isn't it him? The one who is..."

_**Gone.** _

Pain blossomed in his chest, forcing him to hackle and tumble on the floor. There was a shout, a panic, but something blocked them out, put far, far away, and was tugging, dragging him down, down, down, and he couldn't feel, he couldn't see, he couldn't even breathe. Familiar images were burned out of his mind by someone, by _something_ , and he glimpsed _**red shapes**_ resembling chains enveloping, caging him, binding him. They weren't Valjean's chains.

_They weren't Valjean's chains._

**_Valjean!_ **

His persona came in the whirlwind of flame and fury, he could feel him spread his own chains, reinforce his presence. He could feel how Valjean chased the intruder out, how he greedily grabbed every memory that the intruder tried to burn and _put it back together._ He could feel how Valjean shrugged the foreign grip off, diminishing shadows and _**returning control**_.

"Dad!" 

He could hear Akane screaming right next to him.

"Not you too, please not you too, not you..."

Zenkichi made himself open his blurry eyes and was met with Akane, crying trembling Akane, who tightly clutched the phone - his phone, - to her chest. The tears were streaming down her face, and as soon as she saw him looking at her, she dropped the phone and rushed at him, hugging and crying in his shoulder. He hugged her back reflexively and started soothingly stroking her back.

"I'm here, little sorceress. Shhh, Akane, everything is okay now, it's fine, I'm here. You're not alone."

He glanced behind him, wherein the window's reflection Valjean stood in all his otherworldly glory, eternal guardian to the family. Persona was seething, the fury a bright radiance resonating in Zenkichi's soul.

On the TV, the show was airing. No more brown-haired detective with quirked eyes and smiley faces, the detective who for all intents and purposes was not existing for Zenkichi Hasegawa from the future. The detective whose existence Zenkichi did not even remember, though now could only question himself, how was it possible.

_How_ could he _not_ remember famous Goro Akechi, the second coming of the Detective Prince? The boy so bright-minded and quick-witted, that he was put on the Phantom Thieves case and was rumored to bring their leader in. The boy who, if the rumors to be true, outplayed Kurusu enough to give police the chance to catch him, even if Kurusu somehow escaped afterward.

Niijima. It must have beem Sae Niijima who got him out.

Butit was _a fact,_ that Goro Akechi _was_ there. He caught the thief. He proved his justice. And then vanished from the face of the planet.

No, Zenkichi realized, as the cold settled in his stomach. Akechi Goro didn't vanish. He was pretty much _erased_ from everyone's memory _._ His included. The bright detective was somehow involved in the whole otherwordly matter and paid for it not with his life, but with his very existence for it.

And the thieves?..

He had seen it. He had seen how sometimes, in the midst of battle so deep no one was running at anything except a deep-bone instinct, the team deliberately left _place_ near Joker. It was never taken by anyone, - not even once - and sometimes, very rarely, Kurusu seemed to realize that he was leaving the finishing strike to someone who _wasn't even there._ How he was throwing lost and confused glances around the battlefield and how his eyes clouded with heart-wrecking sorrow, how he clutched his dagger tightly, how one moment later the Shadows fell all as one under the barrage of his fueled by grief strikes. 

How after each and every battle where Kurusu lost himself enough to rely on someone nonexistent, he sat alone in the bus and twirled a chess piece in his hand hours after hours, unseeing eyes staring blankly in the past long gone, in the past that would never be present.

Once Joker almost paid for it. There was an enemy, dangerous and swift, who had breached their defenses and was aiming at their leader, right past the place where someone should have been but wasn't. Zenkichi had to grit his teeth and in a rush of a Wild Hunt took the Shadow down, covering Joker completely. Skull approached him right after, seemingly out of breath and eyes full of panic for his friend, for their leader. "Man, I owe you now. Sheesh, this bastard, almost got a jump on Joker..."

And then much quietly, as if unsure himself, Sakomoto mumbled.

_"Why didn't I cover him up?"_

It was with all the teens on the team, Zenkichi now realized. All of them, each and any, unconsciously expected _someone_ to be there for Joker. But no one was, and when confronted by it, they became lost, confused and angry, because they didn't have an answer _"why"_.

As if only Kurusu knew and remembered whom they lost.

And now something sickeningly wicked and powerful and _wrong_ tried to wring out Zenkichi's own memories, made him forget of the future gone past, bind him, _**control**_ him.

Only for Valjean to chase it away.

There was a story behind one Akechi Goro. The story that somehow led him into the other world, to the truth behind thieves' identities, and even to his own awakening. Zenkichi didn't know who Akechi Goro truly was for the team. Hell, five minutes ago he didn't even remember that the kid existed. Yet it was clearly detective who fought for them, who was supposed to fill that place beside Joker.

The thief paired with detective. Detective paired with the thief. Whatever game those two played - Akechi catching Kurusu, Kurusu accepting Akechi on the team - no one was randomly picked up and forgotten by the world.

The Phantom Thieves lost one member to their case. The member who has left a deep gaping hole in his stead. The member whom only their leader has something to remember him by.

The member who apparently was supposed to die and be forgotten, which mysterious _something_ tried its best to hint by almost strangling Zenkichi to death.

"Damn it," hissed Zenkichi, cradling exhausted and fallen asleep Akane closer to his chest.

_When everything started so well, it just had to get worse._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I spend too much time on world-building to help people understand Scramble and Zenkichi as a character. My main concern that it becomes too boring to read.


	3. ways found, ways lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zenkichi draws some depressing conclusions. Those aren't necessarily accurate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter was too long, and I wanted to publish it before Royal release as a treat. So I cut it in half.  
> Edited, but not betaed.

Akane apparently succeeded to call an ambulance when Zenkichi went down. When the doorbell has rung and startled Zenkichi, she was quick to awaken from her exhausted slumber and usher the doctor inside. Managing to remain polite and lethal at the same time, she nagged at the man throughout the whole examination, lingering in the main room until Zenkichi’s vitals were checked and confirmed to be stable. The doctor had the patience of a saint, even when it became apparent that Zenkichi’s health was not in grave danger. He declined the offer to pour him tea, picked up his medkit and upon being informed about Zenkichi’s profession, advised to at least try to catch more hours of sleep. Akane was not to be the one to let the opportunity slip. 

“The doctor says you need to quit your work and find another.” She promptly said, under the amused gaze of the said doctor who clearly understood how his words were twisted but unsure if he had the right to stick his hose in family matters. Zenkichi easily waved the man off. Akane’s disdain for his work was an old song. 

He didn’t have to pay the doc for the call, and the man hadn’t had the right to handle prescriptions, so they shook hands and bid each other farewell. Akane was somehow reassured by the examination results and subtly tried to coax her father to sleep. Zenkichi had found it endearing yet wasn’t ready to call it a night that early, the clock didn’t ever cross midnight, and it quickly escalated into the battle of wills which Zenkichi had won. Akane became nodding off at the kitchen table where she held watch and tried to outglare Zenkichi. As soon as she surrendered watching him, he lifted her up under light protests and carried half-asleep kid back into her room. She snuck under the covers immediately and he left her to it.

“Thanks for the ambulance, Sophia. Next time you’d better not to let the call pass through.”

Zenkichi’s phone flickered to life and Sophia blinked at him quizzically. 

“You do not want to get help?”

“Please don’t phrase it like that, I feel like my mind blows up if I try a philosophy route.” Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t chase away the throbbing pain in his head completely. Valjean did well by taking over whatever the sly bastard tried to get away with, yet the feeling of being ravaged by an unknown force was anything but pleasant. The doc had noticed it, though what he could have advice which Zenkichi didn’t already know? Migraine was a common enemy, easily tamed by the right medicine. “Also, wouldn’t want to explain the next doc why I chose tango with bears rather than hunting down criminals. Brave police do not need civilians questioning their officers’ hobbies.”

“Tango with bears? Why would anybody be questioned? How does it connect with doctor’s visits?”

Zenkichi had to remind himself Sophia has yet to spend time in Kurusu’s company and get guidance on how one cracks jokes, idioms and torments team with terrible puns at the most unsavory moments. Damn, real children tended to get their more colorful word count by talking with peers and watching cartoons, how do you explain humor to the artificial intelligence without sending it - her - into the dangerous territory, namely World Wide Web?

One would wonder if the kids taught her what the memes are. 

_Stick to the simpler words for now._

“You know how much people love asking questions when they hear or see something they do not know or do not understand? Check how many google searches are made in a minute for a rough idea.” Zenkichi gulped down two pills. It’d better work against otherworldly craziness. “The skirmishes with Shadows won’t always go smoothly. Even weak ones pack nasty surprises: burns, shock, icing, you name it. I will brag and call myself a good fighter; yet one slip here, a distraction there, and the enemy will get me. In the best-case scenario, it won’t leave a scratch on me and my Persona would take care of it. Otherwise, it would leave me with an ugly mark that would soon morph into a scar. In the real world, it isn’t easy to get scars the other side left you with, and not every, 'specially legal doctor that would agree to keep quiet about it. The doctors write reports. One detailed report about claw marks on my back or burns on my hands, and trust me, I will have to explain myself to a lot of people, and chances are, they will never let me live that down.”

It would be a high profile risk to keep a police officer prone to receiving scars without even proper wounds beforehand. The other world had a tendency to tone down every damage taken there, reducing it to mere marks in the real one, and even those would fade after two or three more dives. Zenkichi would call it lucky - who would want to live their life being covered in grim reminders like that - if not for the inability to logically explain to normal, not connected to any supernatural crap people, how one gets and then gets rid of scars on a regular basis. 

“They would consider it self-harm,” Zenkichi muttered darkly, putting the medicine back on the shelf when its effects started to kick in. “The scars too specific to be accidental. Fire, cold, acid burns. Lightning aftershocks. Wind cuts. Claw marks. Giant gun wounds. A police officer or not, if you’re not working in bloody Gotham, you won’t get those on your daily routine. The only logical way to get them is to inflict them yourself. Self-harm assumes mental instability. Mental instability leads to many measures that can be taken by society against you, but if we take me for an example, the more prominent are...”

“Suspension of parental rights. Dismissal from work. An order to enter a medical facility that treats people with mental disabilities.”

Someone was exploiting google, huh. Zenkichi grimly nodded. It didn’t ease a sour taste in his mouth. “Usually the officials do not really care for people with mental problems if they do not address them personally. However, the police are responsible for the masses’ safety. One screwed nail can endanger many, many lives. So if I will ever end up under the suspicion of self-harm, it is government’s responsibility to lock me up and make sure I will never walk out, pick up the gun and decide to inflict harm on anyone else.”

Sophia was quiet for some time. Zenkichi had retreated into his room and set up the laptop when she finally answered. 

“I won’t call an ambulance again.” 

“Thanks, kid.” He was grateful his reasoning went through. He might have been a bit less graphic with the girl, though, considering her age...

“But then how can I help you?”

“Huh?” Zenkichi startled. 

"You were hurt."

“Well, that’s...”

'Hurt' didn't even begin to describe it. More like someone was trying to turn his soul inside out. If it wasn't for Valjean, who didn't want to share what was rightfully his, that 'someone' would have even succeeded. 

It did come from the other side though...

"Say, Sophia, you are on the other side right now, aren't you?" Zenkichi took a look around his room. "I just can't see you from the real world."

The girl was not easily swept from her desire to 'help', he knew, yet she also could not simply ignore the question. She worked a bit like Google at times. 

“I am.”

They say brevity is the soul of wit. 

Zenkichi remembered maddening Jail’s architecture, whose nonexistent designer was obviously drunk and drugged. “Does it look normal? This room is still a room and not... whatever it may be?” No way in hell he was going to assume what his room could look like.

“It is?” Despite her picture on his phone hardly moving, Zenkichi somehow got an impression Sophia was walking around and checking the room’s otherworldly copy. “It is darker than yours. The colors are all muted and dirty. It is empty of little things that I can see on your shelf. There is nothing unusual here. No scent of Shadows.”

In other words, a complete absence of personality which is a glaring contrast with Jails. Jails tended to scream their King’s obsessions, other times literally throwing those on uninvited visitors. Akane’s Jail turned Kyoto‘s shrines complex into Phantom Thieves’ place of worship, dark and red colors of their logo enveloping the city. Zenkichi hardly understood what was the meaning behind his room there being even more boring and meek than. Why didn’t it morph into something ridiculous?

The other side wasn’t supposed to be normal. He learned it first-hand. But he wasn’t a bloody expert on it. He mostly rolled with the way it worked, hardly asking ‘how’. 

“So when I fell and was ‘hurt’... Did something changed?”

Valjean didn’t see anything. Valjean felt the intruder as strongly as Zenkichi did, yet he couldn’t find where to direct his fury. Otherwise, his Persona sure would have launched a damn Megadalyon at it. Yet Valjean wasn’t constantly present on the other side akin any Shadow. He manifested when called, resting somewhere inside Zenkichi while not needed and watching from behind his eyes or creeping in reflections. 

Sophia... Zenkichi would assume she existed on the other side invariably and only occasionally transported herself onto Kurusu’s phone space. There had to be a reason why she couldn’t split between all members’ phones.

“I don’t know.”

“Huh?” And here she stumped him for the second time. 

“I am not present on the other side when I venture into the real world through the exit.” Sophia blankly said, as if reciting a Wikipedia’s entry. “I see the muted version of the human’s world in a limited area around myself. There is nothing outside of it. I can enter the other side from here. The connection with this device would be lost and not to be restored until it brought back to the other side. I also need to exit it with whoever owns the device to download myself on it.”

Yeah, now having his phone charged and on him became his priority number one. Sophia was his only ticket to that crazy world and he doubted the installation app still existed. His gut feeling told him it was a one-time thing. Also, it was a terrifying thought to know the girl was practically caged while with him. She seemed the type to quickly take to people, meaning she won’t leave until he would tell her so.

Dang it. 

“Okay, you know what? Forget I asked. If I ever ‘hurt’ like that again, leave it to Valjean. Remember the big guy who fought beside me? It seems he’s better equipped to deal with it. He helped me back then.” Zenkichi picked up his phone and tried to arrange it so that the whole room could be seen from the screen. He saw how Kurusu did it, not ever leaving the phone screen-down and always trying to give Sophia the widest range possible. He briefly wondered if web-cam would serve better. “As for doctors... I have a medkit. I had friends from whom I learned a trick or two. I will treat my own wounds. The only problem is stitches and I don’t know if it’s possible to find a real shady doctor through the net and call them in.”

Not that he really needed to worry much about physical wounds. Valjean could regenerate them as long as they have Shadows in the disposal. Any kinds of burns or status effects were trickier. They healed worse than anything, even when he sank his fangs into the meatiest Shadow he could find. 

“You will help me in many different things, Sophia.” Zenkichi tried to encourage her with his usual crooked smile. It seemed to light up her eyes with badly hidden relief. “So keep your head up, 'kay?” 

“OK! Pinky-promise!”

Zenkichi stared. That... That was what Takamaki taught her. It had happened on the road between cities. Kurusu had started to fall asleep and Zenkichi, as a driver, didn’t want a sleeping teen anywhere near the wheel. He ordered him to swap with someone else who could keep eyes on the road or at least be awake enough to make for a decent company. He would have much preferred younger Niijima, yet the girl apparently drifted off even earlier on Okumura’s shoulder. In the end, it had been Takamaki who climbed on the front seat, while Kurusu brassily moved Sakura aside on the ledge-bed and curled up next to her under the girl’s half-chocked giggling and Sakamoto’s brazen ‘not fair dude!’ followed by quiet askance from Kitagawa to keep it down when the two members of the team were soundly asleep. 

Takamaki had taken Kurusu’s phone, which had also meant she brought a chat-partner to deal with boredom. Zenkichi couldn’t blame her, since staring at the almost unchanging road for several hours was pretty dull even for him. At least now he was able to listen to someone’s chatter and not fall asleep himself. Takamaki has enthusiastically enlightened Sophia on little girls' things here and there and promised to take her on the shopping trip with her best friend Shiho one day. 

“It’s a pinky-promise!” Takamaki has said, shoving her pinky to the phone screen. When Sophia hadn’t reacted, Takamaki promptly explained what pinky-promise was and how was it done. 

Zenkichi had been quite surprised to see AI soon respond by showing her own pinky and imitating the promise even though their fingers couldn’t have been properly linked. It hadn’t stopped them from repeating it on the other side and linking fingers for real. 

“Where did you learn that?” Zenkichi asked Sophia now. 

“Why wouldn’t I know about the pinky promise?” She questioned in response. 

Selective memory, Zenkichi concluded. Sophia’s mind resembled an unfinished puzzle that didn’t allow her to see the full picture, yet many pieces lied scattered but intact. She unconsciously based her reaction and responses on them. He wondered if he could push her enough to complete the puzzle and get the thieves’ companion back for real. He wasn’t a psychologist, however, nor was he an IT scientist or AI creator. He wouldn’t know what to say and where to prob, so he decided not to. If time won’t help Sophia with her memories, then Zenkichi would look into options like finding Ichinose or Konoe. 

How utterly troublesome. 

“Huh, okay. Pinky-promise it is.” He felt a little awkward extending his pinky to the screen and imitating the link. Yet Sophia seemed full of childlike joy and he didn’t have the heart to ruin the moment.

* * *

His next day started to become interesting the moment a woman behind the desk quirked her brow at him. 

“You decided to come?” She bluntly asked, and Zenkichi didn’t really warrant that much rudeness from her.

“Eh, when did Sunday become my day off?” When was his last day off anyway? In the future past, even when he took one, he ended up being called back to work, because apparently crime never slept, and they needed him even on the smaller cases. One would think dealing with petty robbers was his specialty. He didn’t mind putting bastards on their places, yet as a cop, he specialized in smuggling and homicide. He would appreciate if they stop calling him every time just because they needed an extra pair of hands. 

The woman waved him off. “Then I will inform the Commissioner.”

Now was Zenkichi’s turn to quirk his brow at her antics. She didn’t react though, busying herself with work. He scratched the back of his neck and shrugged, walking to his workstation. Maybe she was in a mood. 

Zenkichi barely arranged the place for today’s little research that he’d planned to conduct - he wasn’t expecting good results, he wasn’t the best men to search for clues, - when Kaburagi exited her office and briskly walked - it looked more like stalked - to his desk and gave him a one-over. 

“You don’t look like dying, Inspector.”

Was he allowed to suspect the foul play somewhere already? Perhaps some sort of conspiracy where The Big Bad traveled in time after him and intended to screw him over? Because as far as Zenkichi knew, your boss did not just walk out of her office and complimented you for not looking like a walking dead.

He took a breath. “I think I’m missing something.”

Because of the woman at the reception and now this, his boss giving him the look as if she sees him for the first time in life. Zenkichi did not find it amusing. Inside, he was already panicking. Did Kaburagi figure him out? Would she tell him how his strange abilities could be exploited to benefit them both? Would she just fire him? No, she wasn’t that kind of woman. They were similar in a sense, to the point of accomplices somewhere in the future. She won’t throw him out. He needed to calm himself. Sadly he was bad withholding a facade when the panic crawls on him, and perhaps the pure confusion showed in his features clued Kaburagi on it as well. 

Kaburagi sighed, then turned his desk-phone to her and pressed the button to repeat the last several calls. Soon Zenkichi’s own voice came through the speakers.

“My deepest apologies, but I can't go to work tomorrow. In fact, I feel really bad, and I'm dying. You don't have to worry about me, I will be back on Monday.”

Embarrassed, Zenkichi buried his face in his hands. The undertone of voice was painstakingly familiar. Akane. Why. He knew she was worried about him but for the love of... When did she even manage to make a call?

“It seems you know the speaker. Should we be on a lookout for an imposter?”

“No,” Zenkichi squeezed out. It shouldn't be that funny but it was. He stifled the giggles as much as he could. “It is, eh, my daughter. Akane.”

Kaburagi’s brows shot up, he could see it through his fingers. “That young girl? She has impressive talent. She mimicked your voice almost flawlessly.” They narrowed back when the woman noticed how hard he tried to contain a laughing fit. “It is not a laughing matter, Inspector.”

She was right, it really wasn’t. Zenkichi could always write down an article on ‘10 reasons why you must not impersonate police officers’ together with ‘100 reasons why you should not become a cop in the first place’. Judging by how younger Niijima's determination to be a cop didn’t waver, they weren’t all that convincing. Still, Zenkichi was damn well dying inside and couldn’t help it. It was just too _golden_. Miyako Kaburagi thought Akane mimicking his voice was impressive? Wait till the girl starts mimicking _Joker’s_ voice. The team never let Kurusu live it down, from the moment they saw and heard Akane streaming online. She did use a bit more feminine version of Joker’s voice, considering how scarce the shots with him were, yet still brought it undeniably close. 

And while imagining all sorts of trouble his little girl could find herself in for that shouldn’t be taken lightly, Zenkichi couldn’t for the life of him call it anything but utterly hilarious.

Yet...

Never before Akane used her ability to mimic voices to interfere with Zenkichi’s work. The realization quickly banished the mood he had fallen in and made him ponder. Akane played ape on him once or twice when the mood fits, yet hadn’t abused her talent or acted on her distaste to his job. The call fueled by malice could have long before cost him his position in the police. Today’s call, on the other hand, was formulated as careful as possible to not harm Zenkichi’s work much yet carry the point through. Its sole purpose was to force one’s father to catch up with sleep and proper rest. 

Akane could have despised his work, but at the same time, she realized how important it was for their family. Hence she chose to not act on her emotions and ruin it. 

It filled him with conflicted emotions. With pride, with sadness. Akane was such a smart girl and decided to carry her burden just like her father. Zenkichi won’t forgive himself for disappointing her again. 

“I fainted yesterday,” Zenkichi told his boss. “Only for a few seconds, but she saw me fall. I think I scared her. I didn’t know she called. I went out early, she was still asleep. It’s Sunday, after all.” 

“The call itself came in at night. The receptionist checked it in the morning. She hadn’t found anything strange and reported to me accordingly. Though it seems I know you better, Inspector. Such politeness from you? I would say I hope to live to the day you finally start showing more respect to your colleagues, but I fear people are not supposed to live that long.” 

Ouch, just like that, firing the famous brand of Kaburagi’s humor dead on? The flatness with which it was said was truly astonishing. Zenkichi put a hand on his chest, expression set in clear ‘who? me?’. Kaburagi didn’t even bat an eye.

“Are you at your top performance then? I don’t want my men falling short.”

Zenkichi knew if he told her right there and then that he needed a break she’d nod, file him a day off and send him out. He also knew if some emergency won’t come up today, he would be able to simply sit behind his workstation and mind his business since he dealt with two major cases yesterday and the rest was up to the other ranked officers. While spending time with his daughter sounded like Christmas came early - which was sad because he was rarely free on Christmas - there were major pressing matters for him to settle and he needed police database to progress them. 

So he gave his boss his best goofy smile and answered with full honesty. “I am well, Commissioner.” He would rather fight Kitagawa for food than admit he was ‘fine’. He tried really hard to believe what he was saying next. “It was a one-time thing.”

Because surprise-surprise, a strange otherworldly thingy didn’t share its visit schedule. Maybe it became sad after its unsuccessful attempt to eat Zenkichi’s memories and crawled back into its corner. Or took a grudge and lied in wait around the corner. One way or another, Zenkichi was determined not to faint in front of Akane again. Or in front of anyone at all. 

Unexpectedly, Kaburagi didn't immediately leave after his assurance. She gave him a look and pressed her lips in a thin line. Oh, was it hard to take his word for it? He didn't really present an illness incarnate. 

Eventually, Kaburagi relented.

“Good. I expect nothing less from you. Warn your daughter not to do that again. It is dangerous.”

“Got you, chief.”

Kaburagi left shortly after, leaving Zenkichi to contemplate should he call Akane right away or not. It was still early, the girl could be asleep. His phone stood on a compact charger, angled the way to catch his seat, half of the general room and his computer screen. Sophia had switched off the screen when Kaburagi came and now turned it back on. She paid Zenkichi little to none attention, preferring attentively watch his colleagues on the background.

Could as well warn her when he’d return home. For the time being, he had an investigation to conduct!

Three hours later, Zenkichi felt much less as a dazzling detective he imagined himself to be and more as a very dull and unimpressive cop. He couldn’t even be angry about it since honestly, who would be sad to lose to a young protege like this?

_He seems like a very nice kid._

Akechi Goro seemed to combine Takamaki’s overall niceness, Niijima’s diligence, and Okumura’s politeness. Somehow it gnawed at him that he couldn’t compare the kid to any of the boys on the team. He also was aware how diligent Makoto could blast a hole in the wall with her fist and was a wicked bike rider, how nice Ann was never against setting things she didn’t like on fire and knew how to use her whip, and how Haru could say “we hate cops” with a sunny smile and proceed to crush policeman-like Shadow’s skull with her axe. 

He won’t be surprised if the young detective turns out to be some Batman in disguise. 

Whatever Zenkichi’s mind conjured, what laid bare in front of him was a brilliant young detective whose help to the police force was unmeasurable. The kid was good at finding evidence, leading as a result to a quick arrest of the suspected. With his stunning success, he managed to bring police certain popularity, though Zenkichi supposed his attractiveness and social involvement played a greater role in it. The kid had a food blog and despite not often responding to the comments, he was constantly tagged by fans who were lucky enough to get his photo or autograph. He was repeatedly invited to different talk-show where detectives wouldn’t be usually welcomed. Akechi Goro, unlike Alice and Ango, whose fame was build up artificially by throwing their followers shadows into the cages, worked hard for his glory and position, time and time again proving he deserved it.

And this law-abiding kid teamed up with the Phantom Thieves. 

_Why?_

“Seems like someone isn’t all nice and plushy...” Zenkichi mused aloud.

“People can be plushy?”

He almost, _almost mind him_ , jumped out of his seat and ungracefully fall on the floor. 

“Don’t do that!” His near hysterical shout rang through the room, attracting his fellow officers' attention. Zenkichi immediately, in a beat of panic, leveled exactly one finger at them and made his best ‘I am the highest-ranking cop in this room don’t you dare comment on it’ expression. _“What?”_

He absolutely _did not_ half-choke it out.

Bless his colleagues. They were _understandable_ gentlemen and ladies and turned right back to their respective work. Expect his partner who made a face at him. But it was his former partner, emphasis on _former_ , and he could be ignored or cut out of the scene completely.

Zenkichi might or might not resist the unbecoming urge to stuck his tongue at him solely because of it.

“Did I do something wrong?” Much, much quieter asked Sophia when he recovered his composure.

Zenkichi felt like a complete jerk. 

“No.” He exhaled, put down his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Dammit, was he jumpy. “Sorry, I overreacted.”

What was she asking, again?

“See... I have no idea how to explain it.” For the common convenience and partly some sense of pride he nonetheless tried. “Plushy refers to plushy toys, and they are soft and nice and innocent and everyone loves them. When you say someone is ‘not plushy’, it means they can look like a teddy bear but carry a knife in their suitcase.”

There was a blissful moment of dead silence in his own head. It helped that Sophia didn’t answer right away. Then it has finally got to him what exactly did he answer. 

“Do I bloody had to...” No, no escapism. He did it. He said it. Now he had to live with it.

Bloody awkward.

“Google says many people find teddy bears with a knife cute.”

Forget awkward. Full-blown _embarrassing_.

“Delete Google.” Zenkichi weakly protested behind his hand that has found its way on his face. It lived there now. Permanent.

“So this is how ‘not plushy’ looks like?”

Zenkichi dared to open his eyes and tried to see whatever Sophia was pointing to. He failed. His glasses lied on the table and Wolf’s sharp senses were apparently the other side exclusive feature.

He put the glasses on. 

“No.”

Sophia was pointing at the Akechi’s food blog. Akechi ‘I Am An Embodiment Of Plushy’ Goro blog. The blog filled with the ‘plushy’ pictures to the brim. 

No one could be that damn plushy.

Except for dogs. Dogs were _always_ plushy. 

He could feel a metaphorical question above Sophia’s head and he didn’t have to even look in her direction. 

“I don’t understand.” She summarized, proving Zenkichi just how bad he was at teaching AI new things from scratch. 

_How_ Kurusu had managed it?

Zenkichi switched back to a database tab.

Oh. _Oh._

“Maybe we both should ask him.”

The current case as followed: Incidents of Psychotic Breakdowns. 

Zenkichi opened available details on its case - it was filed as open information to officers of any rank - and skimmed through it. Spontaneous rage fits, scandals fueled by them, some with victims and some are not, traffic incidents seemed to take the biggest toll. And Akechi Goro on a wild guise chase after the criminal he won’t even discover. The perpetrator was hidden by the veil of the supernatural world and no way in hell a simple, ordinary human, even the brilliant detective, would be able to uncover their identity. 

Unless he would get access to the beforementioned world.

Good grief. How maddening it probably was for the kid to be stumped on the case that badly. Add the thieves into the picture, who changed people's mentality by 'stealing hearts', and of course, the detective would draw parallels between his current case and them and switch priority targets to uncover the methods behind it. Apparently, Akechi Goro did prove his stance as a young protege by discovering the other side and the thieves' identities to top it and then joined them to get to the bottom of psychotic breakdowns.

And died.

_He was the same as them. The simple kid caught up in it. And unlike others, he wasn't lucky enough to make it out alive._

Chess piece as a memento. Sad smiles when Zenkicki shared bits and pieces about his work. A burden of sorrow heavier than the world on the shoulders. Kurusu was constructed of little tells, carefully hidden from his friends. Those little tells he treasured in special ways. 

Somehow, Kurusu had created a bond with Akechi strong enough to remember. And he had carried it alone.

_I myself wouldn't have guessed if I hadn't remembered_. _How had it felt, to have one less ally by your side, Akira?_

Zenkichi had to get to Tokyo. Get back to the big city as if he hadn't run away from there in a hurry, taking away Akane, further and further from where his wife died.

"And how do I explain this to Kaburagi, I wonder?"

Kaburagi counted on him because as soon as Zenkichi transferred to the Kyoto branch and processed the first few cases, she called him in for a private conversation and offered a partnership. He had to do everything possible to ensure that she would be promoted to Tokyo Head of Department, and then they would pay back to all the crooked vipers who stood in the way of fair verdicts and denied imprisonment of the real culprits.

The woman would probably assume that Zenkichi went after the old case of his wife's death on his own again if his application for transfer appears on her work desk. And she'd be absolutely right. Zenkichi had already been taught a bitter lesson when he had followed the superiors' directions and lost sight of what mattered most. If he chooses to drag it on now, he'll be no different from his past self.

"Inspector Hasegawa?"

Speak of the devil.

"Is my desk really so interesting today?" Zenkichi quipped, good-hearted humor coloring his words. He took notice of her light overcoat. "Heading home already?"

"Your work clearly fascinated you today." She smiled not unkindly, slightly tilting her head towards a wall clock.

He lifted his brows. "Huh." Realizing how not-intelligently it sounded, he hastily added. "It seems I missed lunch." 

Great choice of words, Hasegawa.

"Should I invite you for dinner, Commissioner?"

And terrible save. At least he knew Miyako had too much on her hands to spend the evening in his company. Besides, they weren't that close at this point, and their grudge partnership never reached the same level as after the Phantom Thieves endeavor.

Despite it, Kabugari appeared thoughtful. 

"I wouldn't mind it, Inspector." She answered in the end, leaving Zenkichi blinking at her stupidly. 

That was _not_ a joke.

"Sure." Zenkichi stood. Picked up his phone and ungracefully turned off his PC by stepping on the power button on the extension cord. "About the time I feel appreciated for all my hard work.”

“You would if you’d stopped bringing headaches wherever you go. Did you speak to your partner?”

“No.” He couldn’t even remember the guy’s name, what was the point of being nice? “I think he's got the hint anyway.”

A beat of strained silence. 

“Sometimes I wonder why I accepted you in my department.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I am not invited for diner every week.”

They stared each other down.

“Was there something special to the last two cases?” She asked.

“Me being dragged into another world and confronting my flaws.” He answered completely straight-faced.

Kaburagi just shook her head at him. “Yes, that. As well as you running into our arsonist two days ago. He was caught and questioned, I must add. He didn’t remember you.”

Zenkichi was sure one couldn’t remember someone who was never been seen in the first place. “Then I’m in luck because my house won’t be set on fire anytime soon.”

Despite a very fancy word ‘dinner’, they both settled on a simple bar down the road. Zenkichi saw how Kaburagi’s shoulders slightly sagged as soon as she sits down and pushes her bag beside her. The familiar for him routine must have been new for her because she didn't dive in straight to the point. Zenkichi decided to play it safe. “Hard day, Commissioner?”

"Miyako is fine." She briskly answered the stern tone of the police chief not quite dropped but less powered. She winced, belatedly realizing it. She wasn't the great actor by any means and was probably calculating how safe it was to drop the professional act before him.

It probably helped that Zenkichi had a very distinct definition of a professional act himself. No other adult would probably on a serious ground name themselves "an ally of justice" and proceed to beat a drunk head to unconsciousness.

Feeling his chief uneasiness, Zenkichi interjected. "Didn't we get past it on our first rendezvous?" She leveled an unimpressed stare at him. "What? Oh, I don't know, the mighty chief of police inviting the new addition to the team in her office almost on the second day since his transfer. And then again. And again. And then they unite to fight the forces of evil. We pretty much moved past formalities, I dare say."

"Your attitude never ceased to amaze me." Kaburagi - _Miyako_ \- muttered, snatching her drink from the waiter's tray before the poor guy could even touch it. "I suppose it comes along with your taste."

Now it stung. "Hey, I wasn't the one to propose some shady bar down the street!" What was wrong with dark shady bars anyway? They were cops. Visiting such places for information gathering or winding after the work was in their job description! Though Zenkichi swore not to drink anything heavy after a bunch of teens showed him the other side, hence his glass of water instead of something stronger. "Can we move on? As much as I'd love to think you invited me for anything but work, I am not that aloof."

"Of course you don't." Miyako huffed as if even a thought was ridiculous enough. She pulled out the file from her bag and handed it to him. Suddenly, her expression became grim. "It is an order." She told him nothing more.

She didn't have to. It was self-explanatory.

Regardless of the order printed there, Zenkichi put it aside.

"No."

"No?"

"No."

She heaved a sigh. "We've been through it, Zenkichi." She clearly thought it was one of those days when he decided to be stubborn and pritch about morale. 

She saw it coming. Yet at the same time, Zenkichi was pretty sure she didn't.

"My answer is still no. I'm not going to handle them the guy on a silver plate. They would either set him free or dispose of him. He won't end up behind the bars."

"Yes, he won't," Miyako easily agreed, as if discussing the corruption in the force and contributing to it was a norm. For them from this time, it perhaps was. "It is what higher-ups want and you know we are not in a position to disobey their orders. We can question them, yet they should be followed through."

"Uhuh."

"Zenkichi," as if addressing him by name made him feel more alienated with her. "You know why are we doing it. You agreed to do it. When I make into the governance of the Tokyo Department, the tables will be turned. We will cleanse the force of vipers and the system would work as it should."

Zenkichi didn't say ' _you were demoted after the phantom thieves incident and still managed to start and procced the cleanse successfully_ '. He didn't say ' _your blind ideals led you to arrest innocent children_ ' or even ' _your cowardice almost cost my daughter's life_ '.

For that, he was as much at blame as she was. Even if he did chose to stay for what was right and not for the corrupted system.

"Miyako," he addressed her in the same manner she did, tone serious and unforgiving, confidence lacing every syllable. "There will never be a change if we keep making excuses for ourselves." He could feel Valjean resurfacing, cruel words his persona rightfully threw at him in Kyoto's Jail echoing in his mind. He smiled mirthlessly. "Aren't we selling justice for our own happiness?"

Valjean laughed. Deep, toneless, satisfied.

_The only villain here is you._

"I don't say it's completely wrong!" Zenkichi quickly added when he saw the beginning of Kaburagi's unappreciative frown. "I have a family, Miyako, and I want to keep them safe." Preferably without evil godhood apps messing with people's souls. "But at what price? We are letting murderers go. Arresting innocent people. Covering up crimes. We can't go on like this."

Understanding flickered in those eyes of her. Miyako was a smart woman, capable of discerning what was right and what was wrong. She stood, however, on uneven ground, where truth wasn’t a tool she could utilize in her crusade against the corrupted system. Her choice was not wrong, yet entirely unfair towards people whom police force had supposedly protected.

Alas, the understanding was hidden behind a layer of steel. Kaburagi didn’t appear to be ready to betray her choices. 

“It’s a pity we won’t be able to work together any longer.” She said, at last, resigned.

It baffled him. “I didn’t say we can’t keep working together.” 

She _glared_. “You just said you won’t be following orders.”

“I won’t be following _their_ orders. I didn’t say anything about _yours_.”

“You are not making any sense.”

Zenkichi took a breath. “Listen, I have a plan.”

“A plan.” Kaburagi skeptically repeated. “You.”

“Pleased to know how highly do you really think of me.” Besides, he was great at improvising. Really. He saved the Phantom Thieves by jumping in front of the squad team and screaming his lungs out. It _worked_. “Yes, Commissioner Kaburagi, I have a plan. And we don’t have to wait another year to lock up the scumbags for what they deserve. And this,” he held up the file she brought for him, “can actually help us with it. Now, I can walk out of this bar and pretend nothing has happened. Or you can listen to me and maybe we will find another way to affect corruption without helping it bloom. So how’s that?”

Kaburagi Milano regarded him with a look. 

It was a bit unfair, but Zenkichi knew she would crack. Following unjust orders disgusted her as much as it did him, after all.

“You have my attention.”

* * *

“Why doesn’t she trust you?”

Zenkichi stood under the awning, waiting for his turn in the queue. The food joint he stopped to get take out served ramen of all sorts, and he looked forward to picking his and Akane’s favorite before heading home. 

“She does.” He held the phone in his hand. He hoped he created an impression of someone who spoke on the video call. Perhaps it won’t hurt to buy headpieces or ask Akane for a spare pair.

“But she didn’t agree with you.” Sophia insisted. She heard the whole conversation, being put on the table between him and Kaburagi. The AI didn’t impose or interrupted them, yet was bursting with questions as soon as Zenkichi had left the bar. 

“Miyako has a lot at stake. Not only family but her position as the chief and people she is responsible for. She can’t take hasty decisions. I knew she won’t follow my plan.”

It seemingly puzzled Sophia even more. “But then why did you talk with her? You still took the order she brought to you. It changed nothing.”

They had to get to the most embarrassing part, hadn’t they? 

“Okay, lad, just so you know: I wasn’t planning to take the damn order.” Zenkichi intended to put it through a shredder. It was completely justified and mature to the brim action that would have succeeded if not for the particular detail of said order. “It sort of happened.”

The cursed thing was supposed to send him to Tokyo. 

Zenkichi needed a freeway into Tokyo. A way that won’t raise questions in certain people’s heads who may have their eye on Zenkichi at this point in time. More prominent of them being Owada and his associates. Those guys definitely did not need Zenkichi on their trail again and so they kept watch to where he would head next. 

They would have nothing on him if he was to be sent somewhere under higher-ups orders. 

So he took the orders. Grudgingly. And without any intention to follow them through. 

“She trusts me because she did hand me the order even though I told her my plan. She is honestly the best boss one could wish for. Yes, we disagree on methods. But she still stays on my side and won’t say a word to higher-ups. I just need to be careful and prove her we can deal with corruption from our current position.”

He had to make it work. Presumably, before they sunk too deep into the broken system. The world was devoid of fairness most of the time. Zenkichi didn’t want to add up to it. 

“Welcome! What will it be?”

Zenkichi ordered two portions.

"Is ramen tasty?" Beamed in Sophia, while they waited.

"It is. I like it. Akane likes it. No doubt you..." He paused, then raised his voice. "Excuse me, could you please add another portion to my order?"

"Why did you order another one?"

Zenkichi didn’t answer. He picked up the take-out when it was ready and made his way towards his car, but instead of packing in, he looked around. He stood in a way the balk of the car hid him from passers-by. Satisfied, he grinned widely.

"Can you drag me on the other side?"

The shift followed immediately. The colors of the worlds bleached out, and Sophia appeared right in front of him, face pitched in a curious expression. She not-so-subtly itched towards the bags with take-outs, which thankfully transferred together with Zenkichi.

His grin didn't lessen.

"Here," he declared, proudly presenting her the bag with the additional portion. "It's yours. Now you can try it out."

There perhaps existed some weak protests as to why artificial intelligence should not be able to eat or how the food taken into the other world should not truly replenish the hunger or have a taste at all. Yet the Phantom Thieves never questioned why Kurusu's cooking so easily worked for them akin to an energy drink. It is also always tasted delicious, and Zenkicki wasn't ashamed to admit he already missed it.

The girl’s eyes sparkled in delight, though the smile wasn’t quick to come to her features. She considered the offering in her hands. “But I don’t need food. I am a friend of humanity. I am not human myself.”

“Human enough for me.” He clucked his opinion, taking the spot on the ground. The street now was completely deserted, and his car too disappeared during the shift. “Valjean will keep watch.”

With not so appreciative buzz his persona came to life, which in turn manifested his otherworldly attire sans the mask. Yet the chained figure stayed silent, crossing its large hands and pointedly doing what Zenkichi had implied - keeping watch.

It seemed to spur the kid into action because she immediately plopped down beside him and started on a warm bowl of ramen. She hungrily slurped the noodles, despite the earlier statement that she didn’t require food as an AI. 

Zenkichi hid his eyes behind the brim of his hat and smiled. 

“Don’t hesitate to ask me to buy you something to try, you hear me?” He said when she finished and was rewarded with an understanding nod. 

“Umu! I liked it! It wasn’t as big as his usual portion though.” 

“His? Whose?”

Sophia thoughtfully tilted her head. The familiar gesture struck a cord. “I don’t... Remember?” Unlike previous times, she appeared to push her fractured memory, instead of leaving it be. “He has... blond hair. And there is the other one with blond hair. But the other is ‘she’?”

He didn’t have to guess who she meant this time. Sakamoto bugged Kurusu to make him ramen for a while. And Takamaki was always there to either back up her friend or tease him for it. 

“Want to try a bigger portion next time?” He said instead of addressing the issue, lifting his brows. “You’re so small. Where would it go?”

She puffed her cheeks at him. It was adorable. “My configuration is flexible enough for the required task.”

Of course it was. 

“I will keep that in mind.” 

They ended their little detour at that, Sophia promptly leading him to the nearest exit back into the real world. He had to take a walk back to his car, though he had no qualms with that. 

On their way home, the car was filled with Sophia’s quiet, contentment singing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I congratulate you all on the upcoming Royal release. Unfortunately, I won't be able to play the western version alongside you, but I've played Japanese (I wouldn't have understood Scramble otherwise) and I'm very familiar with the events in it. I want to mention once again that I don't mind spoilers in comments if you want to discuss or comment on something.
> 
> I also want to note that with the Royal release I have no reason not to include the characters from it in the story. I see great potential in bringing some of the characters together. And while I am sure that the events of the third semester will change significantly due to the new faces, I still hope that you will stay with me and my story to the end. Do not worry, while we are far from it, I will give a warning at the beginning of the chapter in which they are likely to make their appearance. 
> 
> As a final afterword... I need a beta. I really do, mostly on the grammar part. Please, if anyone is willing, let me know.


	4. we can go

Horror movies had a peculiar bonus to reward with knowledge about how not to let a big scary monster chew your head off or how to avoid the fate of becoming the next local scarecrow. Of course, Zenkichi opted to ignore the Internet guru's wise advice and stick his nose into every dark corner and every damn hole. How else was he supposed to search the parallel dimension Tokyo Tower from top to bottom for an artificial intelligence with Godhood's tendencies? Emma was a sneaky piece of software and Sakura Futaba has forever proved how dangerous it was to underestimate any programming, even obviously broken and half-baked.

"It is your fault." Brazenly accused Zenkichi of his reflection, which looked exactly like him, because Valjean didn't hide in the mirrors on this side. The gesture was more for the effect. Persona would still hear it, whether there's a reflection or not.

Some "dedicated" police workers would have stopped the moment they failed to notice telltale red and black cages with people's wishes locked inside. More persistent ones would have climbed up, then calmly walked down and print a bag badass "safe" sign on a metaphorical entrance to the tower. 

Regrettably, Zenkichi did not fall into their category. He had seen for himself what the Tokyo Tower had become and how the defeat of the Phantom Thieves could have turned out for Tokyo. If there was even a small, tiny chance that Emma was hiding in the tower in its bud, it had to be found and neutralized. Except the tower was perfectly normal, without the scenery of a typical horror movie, and laughed at Zenkichi and his unsuccessful attempts to find the evil influence where it wasn't, to beat it all out without a trace.

In a Claymore of Justice modern style. How true ally of justice was supposed to do. 

Sophia bounced around the place having no idea she broke every horror movie rule too. She mostly stuck to windows though, glazing at the city and framing it with her fingers exactly how Kitagawa has taught her. Sometimes she would ask Zenkichi about interesting buildings on the distance, and he would explain to her what purpose do they serve. Tokyo was his home more than Kyoto would ever be, and he doubted he would have ever left it if not for his wife's murder.

All the more worried he felt, for the town on this side was unnaturally quiet. Zenkichi did not expect the stagnation with which it would welcome him.

It put him on edge. Forced to tread carefully even though Valjean's might was enough to brutalize any enemy in their way. No place should have been so quiet and lifeless. In this unnatural world, there might not have been people, but there were Shadows. But in Tokyo, unlike Kyoto, even those were absent. That worried him. It may have bothered Sophia too.

Zenkichi broke the windows at the top of the tower and waited for the enemies to drop on him. With an annoyed grump, he hopped on the roof when it did not happen, and took a close look in the distance.

“This is ridiculous. Not even one stupid Shadow.”

Shadows were always after their hearts, he learned the hard way. They were eager to steal wishes and feed their insecurities.

“We beat the crap out of them ‘cuz they get in the way!” Sakamoto used to exclaim while ominously cracking his knuckles or swinging his tub. The majority of the team seemed to agree with him, and Zenkichi too beat the lesser Shadows since they hindered the team’s advance to the Jail King. 

Later, when at the car’s wheel again, Zenkichi would ask their universal guide, that’s being the cat, about how does it work. Morgana wasn't eager to provide more answers than necessary, even with Zenkichi as a part of the team, and perhaps it was connected to whatever difficulties the teens have faced before. The cat has said Jails were different from what they have to deal with within the last year. 

“Human Shadow is basically a side of one’s personality they don’t want to see but act upon its desires regardless.”

That, Morgana also noted, was what hadn't changed. He didn't elaborate on what did, however. 

“It is, how should I put it...” Niijima Makoto had struggled to explain, and then sighed, deflated. “It would have been easier to show, but...“

“We have enough problems as of now.” Kurusu had interrupted, severing the building pressure among the thieves. Takamaki put a grounding hand on Sakamoto’s shoulder and visibly pushed him down to prevent from vocalizing his opinion. “We don’t have the time and resources to deal with anything besides Jails.”

Which was true, Zenkichi justified, because their next opponent was Konoe, and even after they stopped him, they had to race back to Tokyo and face Ichinose in the tower upon which Zenkichi stood right now. 

For an adult catering a team of teenagers and making sure they would see the end of the day, Zenkichi truly knew very little of what he was put against.

“Wolf-san?”

“Coming.”

Still, there was something ultimately wrong with just how silent parallel Tokyo turned out to be. Even with the Shibuya’s Jail down and the Tokyo Tower empty, Shadows should have been roaming the streets.

“Found anything, Sophia?”

The girl nodded. 

“Not here. Outside. There.” She pointed at the subway point visible through the broken window. It was Shibuya station, out in the open. Zenkichi could see a familiar red haze swirling at the entrance. 

“And the tower?”

She shrugged. “I can’t smell anyone in it.”

He hadn’t had the reason to make her do another round, as well as subject himself to do the same procedure again. Instead, they made their way towards the subway. 

The entrance to Shibuya station at least looked appropriate for an otherworldly dimension. It was sunk in deep red colors, the darkness enveloping the stairs appeared unnatural, and Zenkichi could faintly hear incoherent whispers that Shadows seemed to emanate. 

“How many are there?” He put a hand on the claymore’s handle. He didn’t like how the whispers grow louder by the second. 

Sophia shifted her stance. “Too many. I can’t smell them all. Does the subway in the human world supposed to be like a maze, too?” Her helmet and visor were on and blazing. He could see her weapons on the ready. Smart girl. 

“No, it doesn’t,” Zenkichi growled and sliced the first emerged from the stairs Shadow in half. “Fall back!”

In a matter of seconds, they were swarmed, as though all the Shadows of the city had descended on them at once, as if every Shadow had been driven underground into the subway tunnels, only to crawl back out at the first sniff of the human wishes. The faceless creatures covered in the white masks were bent on tearing them apart, and while they did burst into more familiar monsters after the first strike, they also were uncharacteristically aggressive. They bore little care for their pitiful lives, throwing themselves on the blade in a desperate attempt to land a hit. They didn't turn tail even when Valjean joined the fray, practically obliterating the next wave which exited the subway.

They didn't even go after Sophia, Zenkichi realized, when the girl effortlessly picked up a Shadow on the sideline, completely unhandicapped and free to attack from whatever angle she wanted. No, they went after him, as if he was a prize they were craving, a golden goose to pick bone after bone.

Something nibbed at his awareness and he rapidly turned on his feet, severing a long red appendage extending from the darkness down the stairs. It retreated as fast as a snake, and the zeal with which Shadows attacked seemed to went with it. The last creatures left on the battlefield scattered in panic, making themselves easy targets for his guns and Sophia's lasers.

"You alright?" Zenkichi checked the girl over when the last enemy was shot down and dissipated into black smoke. Sophia seemed alright, if not a bit thoughtful. He frowned. "Got something from them?"

"I'm not sure if it's anything important. I'm a friend of humanity and I can feel everything that belongs to humanity. Until almost the end of the battle, I couldn't feel the connection between these shadows and mankind."

"Why would the common Shadows have a connection?" 

Sophia blinked at him, very slowly.

"They always did."

"Is that... Is that so?" He gave the obscure maw of the subway entrance an entirely weirded look and finally sheathed his sword. He used to think only human-like Shadows were connected to humanity, being an alter ego and vise versa, and treated the simpler Shadows akin to mobs in computer games. Usually, in Jails it was so that the Kings gave orders to monsters, and monsters thoughtlessly followed them, filling the void inside them through regular contact with wishes.

Was it supposed to work somehow differently?

"Sophia, what are Shadows exactly?"

He hoped they weren't humans turned monsters. No, they couldn't have, could they? The thieves dispatched them too swiftly, they would have hesitated or shown remorse for taking lives otherwise. He knew those kids, they weren't that resilient.

"They are suppressed human thoughts given physical form!" Sophia answered enthusiastically as if delighted to be asked the question. "Those are mostly negative and can fester. When there are too many, they become a threat to humanity! And as a humanity friend, it is my duty to protect it, and so I have tools to fight."

_You have no such duty._ Zenkichi wanted to clarify. _No one's duty entails fighting with monsters for the sake of others, especially not yours._

He couldn't say so, of course. The drive to be humanity friend, to be _useful_ in any way possible, was the only thing keeping Sophia online, because her creator denied her everything else. Ichinose discarded Sophia for uselessness, and Sophia's programming turned it into a need to satisfy humanity's wishes to protect itself from self-destruction.

She is lucky Kurusu has found her. In the hands of the other, she could have been twisted into the vicious tool, just like her "younger sister" Emma was.

"Noted," he opted to say instead, tipping his hat down. "So the Tokyo subway is a maze. Go figure. Hope we won't have to fight a literal Shadow Horde every time we go down."

"Are we going down?"

He gave her a look.

"Not when I'm about to be late for work.”

* * *

Deciding to swing by the Tokyo Tower on the way to Tokyo Police Department was perhaps an idiotic decision.

Zenkichi sat in his car parked in front of the Tokyo police station and drank cheap coffee, unsuccessfully trying to reboot his brains and reactivate himself. The fight in the other world didn’t help the matters, making him sore and double exhausted.

By the order which sent him to cooperate with the Tokyo police, the very one which Kaburagi gave him in a cheap bar, Zenchiki had to wake up at an unjustly early hour, make himself not the most nutritious breakfast, kiss his daughter and leave for Tokyo. The plan changed slightly as Zenkichi drove past the Tokyo Tower and could not get the cells filled halls with people (shadows of these people) out of his mind. It was a bad, bad idea to drop into the other world before a meeting, but he couldn't talk himself out of it, even when logic suggested otherwise.

Zenkichi knew the AI couldn’t be there yet, since Konoe’s tech company didn’t even announce their upcoming project, hence Ichinose hasn’t finished the development. The inner demons, however, didn’t let him rest until he parked his car near the Tokyo Tower and instructed Sophia to drag him on the other side. 

He had to clarify those inner demons had nothing to do with Valjean, who was predictably satisfied with the chance to rally his knuckles and faceprint Shadows into the ground, yet unresponsible for Zenkichi’s paranoia and consequence desire to check the Tower out. 

His worries put aside, now Zenkichi was able to concentrate on his current matters at hand, though not before gulping down the remaining coffee. 

Also, if he thought meeting Sophia who didn’t remember him was bad, he was wrong. He never has thought he would suffer internal meltdown crossing the paths with Sae Niijima from the past. 

He didn't even expect to be sent to collect the files on the current case from her. The Tokyo Department chief said she worked on the Shibuya's gangs before, and since Zenkichi's suspect was presumably hiding among them, he would do well by asking her for advice. It wasn't a close call to "working together" as they did in the past (and now already future), yet Zenkichi expected some pleasant familiarity from the encounter.

He was wrong.

Upon entering the courthouse, which was literally a couple of steps from the police station, Zenkichi immediately saw, but honestly did not recognize Nijima. Oh no, she didn’t change in appearance, downing the same business style suit, makeup, and hairstyle. No, she was different from the woman he knew in a different way, the way that stole his breath and seized his heart. 

“Niijima Sae, Special Investigation Unit. Hasegawa Zenkichi, I presume? A pleasure. I have been briefed on your situation.” She extended her hand. “Do you need something specific or would you prefer to get a full file set?”

Zenkichi accepted the handshake, nervous despite himself. He had trouble maintaining his composure, and it definitely didn’t escape her notice. She narrowed her eyes, an unfamiliar raw edge twisting her expression. “Is something the matter?”

“Yes.” He honestly answered, and before she could continue, added. “Wasn’t expecting to be sent to a famous SIU prosecutor.” 

For some reason, it had taken her aback. Zenkichi briefly wondered why so. “I... see. Then let us carry on.” She offered him a freshly printed stack of papers. He took it without further questioning her behavior. “I have looked into Shibuya gangs when one of my defendants appeared to have direct involvement, but I haven’t had an opportunity to investigate deeper and get out more than what was on the surface. That’s all I can provide.”

She wasn’t sending him right away, choosing instead get back to work on her laptop, and after a quick inquiring gaze around, Zenkichi simply opted to take a seat in front of her and examine the documents received. Gladly, Niijima didn't retaliate and allowed him to share a table.

He took a deep breath.

Well. Shit.

Zenkichi could feel his phone vibrating in his trousers, and since he didn’t turn his sound off, it was more likely Sophia trying to get his attention. He had a bad feeling about it. Considering what outright depressing conclusion he has made out of his short observance of older Niijima, he really wasn’t keen on confirming it by taking his phone out.

_But it simply cannot be, can it?_

There was a day engraved in Zenkichi’s memory. The day Niijima Sae walked into the Kyoto Police Station as if she had owned the place, strolled past every security on her way, and walked in the room he was held into. One moment he was interrogated by his colleagues and blamed for helping The Phantom Thieves escape, the next one he exited the station by her side.

He remembered how she was. Full of steeled confidence. Didn’t raise her voice even once, yet commandeered the attention of the whole room. Walked freely, unperturbed.

Free of burden. 

Now said burden enveloped her like a blanket, heavy and suffocating. Rough edges and tense shoulders, the movements restricted by the need to be acknowledged for her hard unrelenting work. He often saw it in women working in the force.

Once upon a time he even saw it in himself. Working under Kaburagi and trying to get a higher profile, no matter the cost, to get recognition and then repay the bastards who refused to investigate his wife's death. He had learned in a cruel lesson about where such ambitions lead. He really didn’t want to contemplate what has Niijima went through to get rid of them. It was also hard not to since he saw the woman she became. 

With a quiet sigh, he took out his phone. Sophia knew better than to openly speak with other people nearby, - and he warned her not to, - and so she presented him a text message instead.

**smarter than Siri:** I smell an entrance. 

**smarter than Siri:** I don't know where.

**smarter than Siri:** It may be a Jail you have told me about.

**an ally of justice:** we checked the city

**an ally of justice:** its empty

**smarter than Siri:** It is only here. I didn’t smell it in the tower or near the subway. 

Zenkichi flicked his eyes up, swiftly scanning the court building’s interior. 

**an ally of justice:** right inside?

**smarter than Siri:** I don’t know. It is just _here_. I want to see it. I will transfer you inside. 

**an ally of justice:** NO WAIT

**an ally of justice:** goddamn it Soph ppl normally can’t disappear into the thin air

**an ally of justice:** at least wait for me to end my workday kid geez

He really needed to study the files he was given. He could concentrate on them, despite the constant distractions caused by Sophia's endless insistence on hurrying up.

Zenkichi took a short look at Sae, busy with her own work. Niijima was closely associated with the Phantom Thieves, since her younger sister, Makoto, was a direct member of the team. He thought she was originally supporting their charade, except... Prosecutor Nijima Sae was indeed known in her field of work, in particular for her loyalty to the law and commitment to justice. It would have taken a lot of effort to get her to turn against her ideals and beliefs.

But the thieves were known for their ability to steal and change hearts. In a way, he witnessed it himself.

Nijima Sae has never acted as if her heart had been changed. Zenkichi saw the confession videos of Ichiryusai Madarame and Masayoshi Shido, and she was nothing like them.

Yet... Nijima Sae, who sat in front of him now, and Nijima Sae, who he saw in the future, were like two different people.

_An entrance is here._

And Zenkichi really wanted to know, an entrance to what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your portable Sophia are 9999 times better than Yaldy's app.  
> Just telling.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, suggestions, and recommendations are always welcomed and appreciated. I am a new writer, any feedback counts. Thank you for reading uwu


End file.
